Zenith
by Lady of the Silver Bridge
Summary: You'd think that having multiple bloodlines would make life easier, but not if your name's Uzumaki Naruto. Power comes at a price, and strength in battle is nothing without a will behind it. Bloodline!Naruto


**Strength of the Leaf**

**This is my take on the old 'Bloodlines' challenge where Naruto gains/is born with multiple kekkei genkai. Obviously, a major part of the challenge is making sure that he doesn't immediately become a boringly invincible protagonist, so I'll do my best on that front, while also being able to make him a powerful figure. Pairings currently undecided. To get this out of the way before the beginning; I don't own Naruto, and am making no money from this.**

Of all the shinobi in Konoha, there were none that got under Orochimaru's skin quite as much as Uzumaki Kushina. It wasn't that she was the fiancee of the man who had stolen his rightful place as Hokage. It wasn't that she, as the last scion of Uzushiogakure's elite clan, had access to jutsu the likes of which Orochimaru could only dream of. It wasn't even that she was without doubt one of the loudest, brashest, crudest, soft-hearted fools to ever call themselves a shinobi. No, his emnity lay deeper than that, in the core of the creature that the girl secretly housed.

The Kyuubi. Power beyond legend, combined with a lifespan great enough to withstand decades past the point where other bodies would have shrivelled and died. The potential of it was a perpetual itch to endure, made worse by the fact that Kushina never seemed to use it. If Orochimaru had had a fifth of that power, he would have crushed Konoha long ago and forced the old man to acknowledge to whom the position of Hokage rightfully belonged to - but that was a foolish dream. The very nature of a jinchuuriki made taking one for a host to be extremely unwise, and there were few other ways Orochimaru could capitalize on that potential.

At least, that was what he had thought before he began his bloodline experiments. He intended to learn every jutsu, and that necessitated gaining all the bloodlines necessary to operate them. A perfect host would contain all - but to his disappointment, he was trouble having even one take root. So many test subjects wasted - and he would arose suspicion if he took any more, there had been quite a few near misses already. It could be done, he knew it - but all he had to try it on were failures and weaklings. He needed someone stronger, someone like-

In the end, it had actually been quite easy. The wretched jinchuuriki had become pregnant, and for all who were in the know about her condition, the fear of what could happen was immense. It had been easy to persuade Biwako to allow her husband's favourite student to examine her patient, even if said patient loudly protested about being seen by "pasty-faced leech wannabes." Kushina hadn't even known what was happening when he spliced in the gene samples. He had chosen three dear to his heart - one from Kirigakure, one from a remote village he had personally destroyed, and the last from Konoha itself - how the Sandaime would rage if he knew where it was from!

If all had gone to plan, he could have stayed to observe any changes and ensure a way to replicate the technique if it had proven successful. Unfortunately, a test subject managed to escape from its chains, barely a week after his attempt. Mad with pain and terror, the creature had none the less managed to adequately convey a message to those who found it, and the Sandaime was soon at his door. Orochimaru was forced to abandon his long-term projects to flee, his notes burning in the wreckage that his traps had triggered.

Kushina herself noticed no changes, even if she had been rather alarmed to discover the news of what exactly Orochimaru had been doing under the guise of a loyal Konoha nin. Even if she had always thought the guy was creepy, neither she or the little one seemed to be doing badly, and it wasn't as if the Kyuubi had seen off worse than whatever the snake might've been able to do. Precoccupied as she was with the rapidly approaching birth of her child, she never gave Orochimaru's tests another thought.

* * *

The building was tiny, the scent of fresh whitewash still lingering in the cool, still air. The planks were still shiny from where the dust had been hastily scrubbed off, and the walls plastered over with crisp wallpaper patterned in soft blues and pinks, but none could deny the faint aura of neglect that still clung to the shadowed corners and narrow windows. It stood on the very edges of the village, unremarked and forgotten as soon as it was glanced at.

_Too good for it, _Umeko thought savagely as she strode through the pale rooms, ducking her head under an exposed beam. The dilapated lights had been replaced with thin amber strips, but the pale light they provided only lengthened the shadows, casting an orange pall over the rippled glass of the windows. It only took one look at them to send her reeling back three weeks, back when the air had rang with screams and a terrifying beastial roar, when the stench of blood and burning flesh sizzled together, when the Kyuubi had crouched before their village in a blaze of red-hot chakra, bright as forge-light. She was a medic-nin, far from the frontlines, but she had felt its hate and fury, a tangible sense of seething rage that had her choking back a scream even as she struggled to knit melted flesh and cooked bones into some semblance of humanity again.

Now that same beast was trapped in here with her, but not nearly so terrifying. The Yondaime had seen to that, binding the demon in chains of flesh that were as weak as the infant it appeared as. If Umeko had been the one to retrieve it from the battlefield she'd have smashed its skull against the ground without a second thought, but the Sandaime had been merciful. _Treat him as a hero,_ their new-old leader had proclaimed,_ and never forget what he has done for us._ Umeko certainly wouldn't. Her family had died out there, a sister and nephew melted away with a single flick of that corrosive chakra. There was blood between her and the beast. If she couldn't collect it, she would at least never let herself forget.

The room of the beast was small, barely bigger than the closet in her apartment, containing little more than the iron crib that housed the monster, along with a small plant pot a misguided soul had placed in there to brighten it up. Its door creaked open as she approached, an Akimichi girl emerging hurriedly from its depths. Umeko recognised her vaguely as a nurse, one of the top civilian medics in the village. Talent far too great for a task such as this - but then again, loyalty would be paramount in such a situation. Only those devoted to the Sandaime's rule could truly hold themselves back from sending the Kyuubi back into the hell it had stormed from.

"Is it sleeping?" Umeko asked, not truly caring about the answer. She would go in, do her job, and scrub the memory away with strong soap when she was done. Whether that was accompanied by an infant wailing she cared not. Normally she loved children, and their cries troubled her deeply, but this mockery of the Kyuubi's was something she'd gladly ignore.

The woman's face twisted in disgust as she threw a glance over her shoulder. "Its arm changed again. Noriko-san said that I imagined it, but I know what I saw. It was crying, and when I picked it up, its skin was hard, like glass."

Umeko frowned, peering over the nurse's shoulder. The Kyuubi's vessel lay on a changing table, its chest rising and falling peacefully. Against the powder-blue of the table's padding its flesh looked rosy, its hair a brilliant shade of gold brighter unpleasantly familiar to anyone who had known the late Yondaime. A normal, healthy baby, and a tentative touch revealed only the smoothness that one would expect from an infant. "I don't feel anything."

"I don't care what you say. I saw the light reflecting off it. Sandaime-sama can say all he likes; I know what that thing is, and so do you."

Umeko shrugged grudgingly, extending her chakra as she checked through the vessel's system. As much as she hated the creature, she was a loyal ninja of Konoha, sworn to obey her Hokage no matter what. She would hate the creature, but never harm it, and dwelling on the matter with a stranger was not something that she cared to go into.

As expected, there was little change from her previous examination. Four different medic-nins checked the baby every day, trying to detect any warping of the chakra system that might signal a breakdown in the seal (Jiraiya-sama himself had checked it over three times already, but no one was going to be complacent about the Kyuubi now). So far, nothing had been found, if you didn't count the fact that the infant vessel already had a chakra capacity vastly exceeding that of most chunin. It would be terrifyingly strong when older - but that was nothing Umeko should be concerned about now.

And yet...

Umeko frowned as her chakra filtered through the vessel's system, twisting away from the tenkatsus to examine the physical body. Unseeing, she felt the curve of the fragile skull, the swooping curve of the clavicle, the thin, arching ribs, the slender metacarpals. Nothing out of the ordinary for an infants, but...they felt at once more flexible and stronger than they should, her chakra mapping out senses that she could never have found by ordinary examination. She could not put to words exactly what differed, but there was a strange fluidity to the bones that she had never seen before, even though they currently lay at rest.

"Anything wrong?"

Startled, she opened her eyes to see the Akimichi giving her an impatient look, and the sensation of strangeness fizzled out as she lifted away her hands. Slightly puzzled, she stepped away from the bed, shaking her hands as if to ward off some tiny insect. "There's nothing new to report, Akimichi-san. I'm done here for today."

Though she had spoken quietly, the vessel stirred behind her, a faint mewling noise splitting the air as it opened bright blue eyes. The Akimichi nodded curtly, snapping on a pair of gloves as she came to feed it. Umeko turned away in disgust, already planning a long, hot shower once she had finished her shift.

Behind the two women, unnoticed by either, green buds were beginning to poke through the soil of the plant pot, glistening in the light of the lamps. In a few hours, they would bloom completely, blotting out the light with green.

**Sadly lacking a beta, so if anyone's interested, your help would be greatly appreciated. As for any other readers, feedback of any kind would be greatly appreciated!**


End file.
